Latest / The Future Travel Experience (FTE) Podcast / Mental Health - breaking the aviation taboo with Kirsty and Andy Dobson of Clarity&

Transcript

Mental Health - breaking the aviation taboo with Kirsty and Andy Dobson of Clarity& · The Future Travel Experience (FTE) Podcast

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Ever felt like the world is moving too fast, that there's simply not enough time between clearing your inbox and joining the next team's call to give deep and meaningful thought to the technologies that are about to transform your aviation operation?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, help is at hand with this new future travel experience podcast.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Proud to be part of the Apex family.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Max Cosny.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Tune in for a collaborative and friendly forum where we'll guide you on the innovations that are too important to ignore.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Each episode, I'll be interviewing aviation chiefs who've blazed a trail with new technology.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: You can listen on your way to work while traveling to an Apex FTE event, or even while walking your dog.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever your preference, you'll uncover a wealth of collaboration, best practice, and creative thinking.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to this week's episode where we're going to talk about something that, well, nobody really likes to talk about, particularly within aviation.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's mental health and well-being.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm delighted to introduce Andy and Kirsty Dobson of Clarity and who are working hard to educate key operators in our sector about the critical importance of having a happy, productive, engaged workforce who are operating in the blue, not the red zone.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: We'll find out more about that in a second.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: We'll learn why kindness is not a weakness, why there are some really hard numbers behind what is considered historically a soft topic, and why perhaps the best thing you can do in your break is go in the cubicle, put your earphones in, turn up the Darth Punk to level 11 and really shake it all out.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy the show.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic to have you both on.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Can you start by telling us more about Clarity and your remit in aviation, please?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well thank you very much for having us on, Max.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um Clarity and yeah, in a nutshell, somewhere in the depths of the madness of the COVID lockdowns 2021, Kirsty and I looked at each other and and and essentially said, What are we what are we doing?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh what are we what are we doing and what are we going to be doing for the next few years?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: And um obviously it was a pretty uh pretty interesting time for everybody to say the least.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it really made us think.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so Kirsty at the time was was trying to run uh a pretty big department across two hospitals within HS in a in a in a pandemic.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I was I was working management consulting in aviation, um, trying to hold down the job that was becoming increasingly difficult with the travel, and you can relate to that, I'm sure, Max.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Lots of traveling being away and living out of a suitcase.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so um we we it was a very short discussion um because we were both suffering with our mental health.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: We've got quite a bit of experience there, um I think that's just what most people have, to be fair.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: And um we we are very passionate about that, we have been for for many years, and ultimately uh we thought, well, wouldn't it be wouldn't it be great if we could go back into businesses, back into industry effectively, and um give people some tools to help themselves.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: What we're talking about, just to be really clear here, is um in in in UK parlance, we're at the 111 end of the scale, not the 999 or the 911 end.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's different in every country, and I appreciate that we'd be listeners um for from different countries, but effectively we're about prevention, stitching time, um, prevention's better than cure, all of that stuff, and and about helping people uh at the end of the scale where perhaps you know that that kind of intervention is more helpful, and we're certainly not um uh working at the 999 of the scale, which is you know, there are qualified professionals, there are things in place, and you know, so just to be clear, it's very much about um prevention is better than cure and try to try and help people before things potentially um degenerate.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I'm in awe of you both because um most people in the midst of the first lockdown were sort of building a bar in their back garden in the shed or um doing a Joe Wicks video, and you guys went on the whole hog and you've built your own business, so very impressive.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was it, like Andy said, it was born out of lived experience, really.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we both had difficult times, personally and then professionally.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think we both sort of burnt out.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh and uh and we didn't really see it coming.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that for me, as a health professional, I found really quite shocking.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I I knew how to look after my physical health, and yet I did nothing to manage my stress levels at all.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it took something really quite significant for me to actually finally wake up and realize actually, I want that this this is this is important, you know, this is and well-being is important, and actually the changes in my behaviours and how I was acting at work um had a direct relation to that.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there's so much related to our sort of mental well-being and our performance and our ability to feel engaged and happy in work.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so much that we could do to support ourselves earlier on before those slips and slides start to happen.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And this is really where we've where clarity's come from, is really that desire to sort of try and improve the work experience.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: To praise you both is a really important topic that people don't feel comfortable saying, uh yeah, I'm struggling here, um, I need to talk to someone, I need some help.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think people find that incredibly difficult to put their hands up.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd I mean, I'd be interested to get your comments, particularly so.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's acute in aviation, which is from my experience, people are working some really um peculiar hours um at very high intensity.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: What are your observations and why why did you sort of specifically look to to you know develop this in the aviation market?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was kind of like an aviation widow in that Andy was off and you know, be away on projects for a lot of the time, and then he would come back and we'd have that little period of readjustment to sort of you know living, being with each other again and it'd be lovely, and then he'd be off again.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and being, you know, as you said, the unsocial hours, it comes with a lot of um stresses and pressures.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I think alongside those demands and challenges that we have at work, it's about getting enough of the buffers in place, you know, things like supportive management, um, autonomy in your job, good, clear progression, an idea of what your role is and the responsibilities that you have, and some peer support and that open, just culture, all of those things are really important in making you feel valued in a company.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think that's what really drives performance, and this is where sort of human factors really play into all of that.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: Quite simply, there is a very significant safety aspect to all of this, a human factors aspect.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where well-being and mental health and human factors can, to be honest, be a bit of a blur.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: They are different things, they are separate things, but they are interrelated.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's that's the important thing here.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so recognizing that um is is is really important.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: What pressures have you witnessed on the apron?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I know you guys, some of you'd be looking at that area uh in particular.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Can you talk us through um some of some of the manifestations of of this high stress environment?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think I think it I mean it always has been.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's important to acknowledge it's not a new thing, and also that you know, whilst there has obviously been progress and great progress in many ways, what happens on the ramp today isn't isn't fundamentally very different from what happened several decades ago.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I I and I I don't want to overstate it, but I think that the the change post-COVID is so significant that it probably is difficult to overstate, actually.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um the workforce has changed dramatically, and apologies for teaching to suck eggs here, but clearly it's changed.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um we we lost um a huge amount of experience.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people, a lot of experience.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: People who I would argue hypothetically were probably never ever going to leave.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but you know, COVID was so disruptive that of course that that that was enough that to to dislodge some very loyal and very um knowledgeable people, and then now other industries are benefiting from that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: So that's gone.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we're back to more flights.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: The data is always lagging here, so we were always a little careful with that.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: But certainly the last official data available through the normal channels like Kale, Iata, the the all of the usual suspects, um, the flight volumes increase you know beyond where we were pre-COVID.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um this is on a global basis, so it's very high level, but the workforce isn't back yet.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: 88% last look um of the workforce doing um well over 100% of the previous flights.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: So the flights are busier, they're more dense, there's more to do uh with you know, there's more dense baggage, more dense seating again at a global level, according to these stats.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and this is happening with the greener workforce.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: So you your team leader who previously may have had multiple years of experience, now, if you're lucky, might have two.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, depends variously between organizations what the minimum requirements are, of course.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: But also, you know, that that's quite a difference, and then the rest of the team may have six months.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is you know an extreme example, of course, it's not like that everywhere, but it but it it can often be like this now.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and throw in new tech, potentially slightly more complicated tech to operate aircraft that are harder to repair when they get damaged, um, yeah, injuries and incidents increasing.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it it just it's it's a it's a bit of a pressure cooker.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I know Kirst, if you want to add, but I mean that I think they're probably the main factors.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the main factors that is actually it's just and it's a it's an increasingly sort of fragile schedule that they're trying to make.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And quite often a lot of the groundhandling organizations have got competing contracts, so they have competing priorities to deal with, last-minute gate changes, all of these create an awful lot of cognitive pressure and stress, and that's what leads to you know, cutting corners, taking short because that's what the human brain does under pressure.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: It cuts corners, it takes shortcuts, it tries to conserve energy in other ways, and so then you know, deviance becomes normalized, you know.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: So quite often we'll see in these, you know, incident reports later on well, they didn't follow the standard operating procedure.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that you know, what led to that?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what were the situation and the environmental factors that meant that that particular instead of just braining the human that failed to follow it at the time, what was the system creating that made that human brain do that?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's a biological process.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: We keep braiming the individual without zooming out to look at what the environment created to that biology.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's it.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have statistics at all you share with our audience on the shortages out there on the apron since COVID?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: In terms of turnover, I'm sure you've heard this this before, but we've literally heard of turnover up to 100% within a year.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: That was a warehouse environment, that was more on the cargo side of things, where they get big peaks in flux, you know, they knew there's a big seasonality um to their to their workload.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's not uncommon between 30 to 50 percent turnover with ground handling staff.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: And and and within a very short period of time, uh plenty of lists that's what we're relating to this, losing people, you know, very early on after investing quite a lot of time and and frankly money in them, um, because it's not necessarily the job that they thought it was.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, the other day we were only speaking with an organization that specializes in perception training, which you may or might may or may not have heard of.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: It was a relatively new thing to me, but it's like a fantastic idea because they're really trying to screen upstream and upstream to make sure there's a good understanding of what the role genuinely involves what a normal shift will look like.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so if I've heard correctly, guys, what we're saying there is we've got um a more inexperienced workforce with the churn higher, they're not staying as as long in a increasingly variable environment, which is absolutely safety critical.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that doesn't sound good to me.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, there's a there's an awful lot of pressures there, and I think um often there's an expectation, there's a there's a sort of a screening mismatch as well.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we've I mean we've heard of incidences of of um new agents only lasting a fortnight.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, they only need to do their first sort of uh couple of shifts out in really bad weather and that and they're gone.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a huge, and we I mean there's some stats that are around for for each in the UK anyway, for each ground handler that they have to replace, it it costs on average about£15,000.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a really expensive mistake to be making.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: So there is that that thing about expectations, and because there is this sort of perception, I think, that aviation is quite glamorous.
• 12:40
  unknown: Yes.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, it depends on how some of this onboarding and training is done now, and often it is remote and off-site and done as e-learning, not as not as in classroom-based, not sort of around the equipment, it's all done virtually now.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: That, you know, it's only really when they're in that real-life environment that actually they then experience the startle response when they've got this huge jet coming towards them.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the realities of that environment, the noise, the everything that they're exposed to, the early starts, the bad weather, all of those things suddenly land in that moment.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe there is a stage that we need to be doing even before we're getting these people into the workplace and you know, sort of in our screening and recruitment processes to really understand what their expectations are of that kind of job and explain what the role demands, I think.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that there's a transparency that needs to be there from the get-go.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, it's a stunning statistic you quote there, Sam Kersty, on that's two weeks at£15,000.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: So if your£15,000 is gone in two weeks, you spend another£15,000 in a historically low margin business.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, the rest of the team are having to work overtime in order to compensate that.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I have heard there's there's many incidents of station managers having to check with some staff that are asking for too much overtime to make sure they're not actually going over guidelines because there is a you know a recommended top limit.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And those because there is that, you know, particularly when a cost of living crisis, people are trying to top up their wages, trying to top up their hours, but then you are running an exhausted workforce, and you are then risking errors because the human brain fatigues.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're tired, our brain doesn't perform as well.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: We get tunnel vision, we're not seeing, we lose our situational awareness, our working memory drops, we're not processing auditory signals as well.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So there's an awful lot of um worries about fatigue.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: We manage fatigue quite well in terms of above the wing.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've got a we've got a system involved there.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: The engineers don't really have a fatigue risk management um program in place.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Many of them, ground handlers, certainly don't.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think they are just as safety critical roles.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: We really need to be thinking about the brains that are looking after those processes as well.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And can you give us a neurology lesson at that level as to what happens to us in a high stress environment?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Different parts of the brain um kick in the case.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we yeah, so absolutely.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the human nervous system has sort of two prime operating systems, if you like.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got, if you want to call it the red zone, so that's when we're sort of we've perceived a threat.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're we've got your cortisol, your amygdala, that sort of fear center in the brain is triggered and it's producing cortisol and adrenaline, and that's that's our fight or flight response.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: So in a customer service agent, that might show up as being quite flicked or defensive with your communication.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: They might avoid eye contact with customers, they might be hiding behind their screen.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And those are just sort of those are defensive behaviours, those are sort of adaptive behaviours that kick in and they happen automatically because our brain is feeling frightened.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then because we can get this, there's a thing called sort of contagious stress.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I heard this actually discussed earlier on about their experience, somebody's experience of going through security, airport security recently, and the fact that they we've lost um, we've lost our warmth with people.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: All they were shouting was bags out, liquids in, you know, all of this like interaction.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you had someone right in front of you, they were still shouting at you.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: We've lost that sort of human interaction.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it just you can feel, he said the fit, but you could feel the tension in that security hall because of all of this shouting of commands.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it just makes everybody feel that much.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a real thing, stress contagion.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have a bad interaction with somebody, you're likely then to pass that stress on to your next interaction with the next customer or the next, you know, um, clear worker that you're working with.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a real thing about how our brains can then freeze and get us stuck in that, you know, fighting, being aggressive with people or hiding sort of behavior, sort of not, you know, hiding behind the screen.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: So um, and that can escalate.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: We can see that can cause customer complaints and problems.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas the the blue zone isn't about being sort of happy and chilled, it's about being more um neurologically reliable in high stress moments.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: So maintaining that performance, that ability to um task manage because um you're able to calm yourself.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of reacting, you're taking a breath and responding.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it means that your executive function is back online, your prefrontal cortex is working better.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: What tips have you got for someone who maybe is um about to hit that red zone and would like to move through to blue?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything they can do?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: So the fastest way to shift, like toggle between the red and the blue zone, is the breath.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, probably the quickest.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the the quickest thing to say is just try and take deeper breaths into your belly, but extend your outbreath much longer than your in breath.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't really matter how many numbers you count up to, but a really big deep belly breath in.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can almost double the length of the in-breath on the out breath, that offloads the carbon dioxide, and that's what signals to the body.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, so chemically it starts reducing the stress, but also it signals to the body that extended exhale that you are calm.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Another good way of doing it is to actually extend your vision because when we're stressed, we get tunnel vision, we get really narrow focus.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: So actually deliberately looking up and softening your focus and then seeing as far as you can, left to right and top to bottom, again, really signals to the nervous system, I'm calm, I've got this, I'm looking about, I'm aware.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a really clear signal.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we just we're never taught these things in school, but actually, we we're the only species on the planet that can control our nervous system with our breath, and and yet we don't teach anybody how to do it.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I I'm I'm slightly more max.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: My my role in in this stuff, I've been through lots of hedges backwards.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I I'm I we do things that recursive does things the right way, I do things generally the wrong way.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I've got to say, just to just to I I actually used the technique recently, and um, I think basically as long as you're breathing out, for longer than you're breathing in, you're trying to breathe calmly and deeply, but focus on breathing out for longer, it's really effective.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um just personally, if someone comes at me with numbers, you know, in for four outputs, I'm I it it's not work, it's not gonna work.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: I just need basic, basic stuff.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we I suppose with some of the advice, we try and simplify it down just to this, not in a again, we've got to be super careful with this.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: We don't want to patronize people, people aren't stupid, but you just to try to break stuff down to a level that just is is usable uh and rememberable.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: That system has to be almost um sub unconscious, subconscious, because you don't have time to think in a fight or flight situation, should I do it, shouldn't I do it?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is primed from evolution to say get out or or fight because there isn't time for us.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, absolutely might kill us to wait.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, no, interesting.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what about what would your um advice be on spotting someone within your team who might be operating in that red zone?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: What what kind of health should leaders look out for?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it may well be things like they uh have started to withdraw a little bit, so maybe they're not engaging in conversations, but maybe their con their forms of communication has changed, maybe they're a bit more brittle, a bit more clipped with how they're responding to things, or becoming a bit sort of disengaged, moaning or groaning, that kind of thing.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or it might be physical signs as well, it could be that they're not looking after themselves quite as well, or you notice a heavy reliance on energy drinks or something to get through the shift.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: So this it can manifest in lots of different ways.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think um, I mean, for me personally, before my burnout, um, I the thing that I dislike my the most in myself was my irritability.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was just not like me at all, really.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I was getting, I was losing my rag really quite quickly.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that was quite a change from my baseline.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think colleagues notice those sort of things, but it was just unfortunate I was the boss, so it was harder probably for them to pack it.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but this is where I think actually um vulnerability and sharing, particularly if you are and if any of your listeners are in positions of leadership, I'd really urge you to do this.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: The best way to support your staff is the the willingness to be a little bit vulnerable yourself, to admit when you make mistakes, to share when you found things challenging, or you've not quite met a deadline, or things haven't gone quite to plan, and we've had to revert and recharge.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Being human and sharing that struggle with other people gives them the permission to report errors and accidents and near misses and incidents and things that they think could be improved at the front line.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: We, if we stay silent and sort of impervious to, you know, imperfect looking at the top, then your staff are not going to be honest with you at the bottom as to the things that they see day to day.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you're too far away from it to see what's going on day to day.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Information gets siloed.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's that little bit of vulnerability, it's like a it invites other people to be a little bit vulnerable themselves, and then you feel seen at work.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just rents, it's not a weakness.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it builds psychological safety, which is so important to just culture.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can't have one without the other.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Talk to us about just culture for the listeners who may not be familiar with that term.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's so important.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um essentially, if if I were to give an example, I like to explain it using an example, but um, if you have uh you've got an aircraft being turned around, um and um an operative uh causes damage to that aircraft during the turnaround through uh you know a genuine error, the equipment's failed, something's gone wrong.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: The point being it's not negligent, it's not intentional, uh, you know, it it's not a it's not a bad actor.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is a genuine uh accident, accidents happen, incidents happen.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um and just in in a just culture that that is able to manifest itself openly and clearly, and the investigation will be into the root cause, including the system, and not focused on the person and blame.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: As long as it is, of course, true there's no negligence involved or anything like that.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's it's it's essentially it it it is it's it's kind of psychological safety and action, I would, I would, I would argue.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and do you know can you talk to us about what impact adopting just culture may then have on directly on the business performance?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: If you do it right.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: There have been recent studies um into this actually, as recently as as as last year and and even early this year, saying that psychological safety is is the single most powerful upstream predictor of staff well-being and protection against the burnout.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's the the single most powerful upstream thing you can have.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um where psychological safety is low and the cost of speaking up is is too high.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's when things get hidden, as we were just saying.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's when things get hidden, there's this fear in reporting.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and incidentally, it you know, in it innovation drops, innovation stalls, in fact.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, productivity drops.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's not it's not, you know, there are so there are ripple effects and they're very significant.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'd argue more than ripples, in fact.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's a really important one you mentioned there, Andy, for our audience.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you're saying that if you don't have psychological safety, you can forget new ideas and innovation coming to the fore.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: What what why would that be?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's just I'm not gonna speak out yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to have that engagement to make it work and in order to to to to roll out anything new, I said to make it work with user acceptance testing, getting the right people who are gonna use the thing involved in developing it, and you know, like helping to own the ideas at the first place.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you're worried that you're gonna, you know, that you're gonna get shouted down or laughed at or ridiculed, could maybe because you're a neurodiverse person that's been trying to mask it in the business, and that you know, we know that they struggle sometimes in meeting settings, it's quite difficult to maybe put forward your your opinion.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and so that that innovation sits within that person because they haven't got the facilities and they haven't got the support systems or the way of working that would allow them that this or the psychological safety for them to say, actually, have you thought about this?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: This makes more sense to me.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: We could try it this way.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I know we haven't done it before, but you know, could we give it a go?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a silly question thing, isn't it?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: Within reason, there should never be a silly question.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: Within reason, of course, they're always silly questions, but you know what I mean.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: It it you should in an environment, you I think if you have to probably think sorry about the silly question, that might be a little flag there to say I'm not feeling totally safe about raising this.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yes, and and that ultimately, you know, quite quitting, we've heard about this a lot.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, this is when that happens as well.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Not only do people retain the information, um, the good, the bad, the ugly with them, and then the innovation, but they also sort of quietly disappear over time, um, where where they don't feel safe because they've been I suppose they've been swallowing this operational friction, you know, daily for a very long time, and ultimately everyone has has a limit.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it yeah, it it drives cost.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it it genuinely does.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: This is where, you know, over over time we're very passionate about demonstrating things like I've just said in data cold, hard, hard fact.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that really that's that's a clear part of our mission because I think when you know it's important to demonstrate things in numbers, and genuinely hostile, you know, numbers, relevant numbers can be put on a lot of this stuff, and that that's definitely part of the mission is to really start painting a picture in in numbers.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because there has been a historically, there will be a um you know a dismissiveness that oh, this is soft stuff, that we you know, we don't need to listen to this, it's it's you know, it's um it's a luxury item.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, the lens is everything, Max.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, on that point, and yeah, the lens is absolutely everything.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: This is um like there's the stuff we're talking about in general here.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: It this is just not a nice to-do.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: This is the it it might sound like it, if it still sounds like it, we're not doing we're not doing a good enough job.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's not a nice to-do, this is business as usual.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, how often have we all heard, you know, our staff are our greatest asset, they're our number one, but they're our most important resource.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: And don't get me wrong, and it's often genuinely meant, and I'm I don't mean to sound in any way um disingenuous, but so if that is the case, and we've got let's say there are you know our staff are the Ferrari engine, other brands are available, and let's not put cheap value oil in that engine, and that's what we're talking about here.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: This this is you know day-to-day lubrication, looking after people, and you know, if we really mean it, I think we could we can just invest a little bit more in the oil that we have to.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: We're providing some oil anyway, we might as well try to do the oil payoff in the long term.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Howdy there, partners.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Future Travel Experience's 20th anniversary global is going to Texas.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Join us from the 8th to the 10th of September in Dallas, where we'll be bringing together airlines, airports, technologists, startups, and industry partners who wish to reimagine the future of travel.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: For attendance inquiries or to join us on the exhibition floor, please email me at max at future travelexperience.com.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'll see you there.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: What about someone who's listened to our conversation, um, particularly around the skill shortages on uh the apron um and thought, well, actually the solution here is let's get some robots in, let's get AI in, let's take the people out completely.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's the solution here, not helping to talk about the mental well-being and the stress zone of our people.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Robot doesn't need that, Kirsty.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: Can I literally differ?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: Can I answer this question?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Just very quickly, all I all the only point I'd like to make is that um technology and advancement and uh it's it's it's essential, it's really, really important.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: We're all for it.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, absolutely all for it.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: It does it does some wonderful things, and it can do some wonderful things for humans as well, but conversely, it it can do some pretty negative things for humans too.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I just wanted to make that point because it is important and it is coming and it's happening, it's arguably overdue on the ramp.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: I know there's a lot going on, but you could argue front house is way ahead.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um passenger-facing stuff, eh?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'll I'll let Kirsty talk a bit more about the human uh product.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know, and well, from a human perspective, I know there's a growing demand from the passenger side for digitally enabled um experiences, and that's you know, being able to check in uh and have as seamless as process as possible through the airport.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the points that are actually causing the most friction for passengers are still those points, you know, baggage, um baggage can you know, picking up uh your security um process and the transfer.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the points at which there's multi-agency, so there's more friction.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's understandable.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: So technology has definitely helped from a passenger point of view, but yeah, you're right.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: The the fear, particularly of AI, but other robotics and things amongst staff for job loss is huge.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and also the feeling that they're, you know, that they're being left behind, that they're maybe haven't got the right skills to use it, they don't know how to use it within their role, um, and they don't necessarily know how to critique it or to or cross-reference um what they're being given if they do use AI.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think if you want to reduce that fear, the best way of doing so is engaging the workforce in looking at how their jobs are designed, looking at the workflow and seeing which points in that can be reassigned to automation.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: So they see it as a companion to their work, not a replacement for their role.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that reduces the fear quite a lot.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I think while we're talking about AI, we have to acknowledge that the greater use of AI is having a significant impact on our brain functioning.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: There is a human impact.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so potentially we're trading away our cognitive architecture for speed.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, because we hear this, maybe this is manifested in our world at uh future travel experience.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: We hear a lot about um lower skilled jobs being taken over by AI and automation, freeing up the worker to focus on the higher skilled jobs.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, tell us a bit more about how that you can do.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, so it's I and it's understandable for that because it's far easier, right, for an algorithm to be designed for a more simple problem.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that then means that that's the workload that gets given to AI, and we're giving the more complex tasks to the human to sort out.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So when that's transferred to somewhere like customer services, that means that we're now having those um customer service agents are having to operate at full you know, sort of cognitive capacity the whole time.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're and they're on complex problem solving mode, dealing with heavily disrupted or you know, sort of maybe impacted passengers.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: So they're potentially irate or rude.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that the emotional burden of that is much more.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so compared to, I mean, I can from experience of working decades in the NHS and doing clinics, I can tell you having an easier patient that didn't have multiple clinical conditions, a history of addiction, you know, sort of polypharmacy to manage, all within the space of half an hour and trying to weave that in.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: If I had an easier client that was just to review and they were following their diet nicely, that was easier for my brain.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a rest and a pause.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've only got the more complex things to deal with, you are not getting any rest essentially in the breaks.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're seeing higher burnout rates in customer service.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm thinking from my own experience that when you go to a self-service kiosk, dropping your bags, you're only going to talk to the human next to those 23 kiosks when it has gone wrong, and you're already on you have your backup because you're saying, Well, it's not working, what's wrong with it?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that the human you're saying in in that circuit is they're dealing with the flack, they're dealing with the people who are already agitated.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, yes, absolutely.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's recognizing that that comes with a human impact because stress in the body, like cognitive stress, so feeling emotional pressure or tension from the situation, causes physical inflammation in the body.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that is what leads to that disease in the process.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: So this is how the brain and the body are totally interrelated, and so some of the chronic conditions that we're seeing is related to the mental pressures and stresses and strains that we're carrying in our lives that we don't even realize.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think for both of us, Andy and I, from personal experience, we both realized that actually COVID wasn't the most significant things that's happened to us in our lives, but it was our buckets becoming full.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize you each of us has got a like a bucket of what we can cope with, basically, if you like.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we just got to the top.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think it's it's that put at some point you need to drill some holes in it or do something.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: And what we're saying is with the higher skill roles, we call them higher skill, but actually that means your bucket's going to feel quicker than um it may have otherwise done.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: So as leaders, you need to be adapting your response to that role and training that person to accordingly.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, definitely.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it might be some upskilling, it's it's about peer support, maybe some supervision, um, and managing rest as well, making sure that we are not um, you know, and some variance in in in work, if if that's possible.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about this quite a lot, right?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: And just very quickly, you think in our in the industry and probably not just our industry, rest is quite often a dirty word.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm doing the inverted commerce side um or dirty phrase, um, because it it it just it kind of implies doing nothing, doesn't it?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the whole point.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: And and the greatest irony is you know, we're gonna get the best performing humans when they are sufficiently rested.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um not by continuing to flog them through breaks and so on and so forth.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: Not that people, but you you know what I mean.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: It it's it is such an important facet, it's not putting your phone on the charger, it's probably the best way.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like just think of your brain, maybe as that's as your phone, and you've got to charge it from particularly as it gets a bit older, right?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you need to charge it a bit more often.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: So it's probably quite a crude analogy, but um, I think it's it's probably fair.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's probably I think in the modern the way technology is there's an expectation.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, if you can't used to be able to say or go home, you something urgent, you phone me.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now you're looking at WhatsApp groups, you're looking at um, you know, your emails, whatever it might be.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's I think it's it's probably more of a trap now, isn't it?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: To think um or totally we we conflate another screen for rest, and it's not you're just walking your laptop for another screen, and actually that's still cognitive information your body's having your brain is having to work through.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you're you're still giving it work.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: True brain cognitive rest is going out for a walk in nature, getting out into a green space or near a body of water, um, or doing some exercise or listening to some music, or you know, it's it's it's not swapping it for another screen.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: One of one of my personal one one of my first successes with this, and I'm still I've got a long way to go, like I said, I'm I'm a work in progress.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but was I didn't use if I had some work to do, I had to get an email out.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: There was something that just needed to go, couldn't leave the desk until it had gone.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: And what I've and I can't do it every time, by the way, I still mess this up from time to time, but what I've learned now, and I know in my bones, is when I get to that point where I'm just staring at the screen, I think I might just boot up Facebook, stand up, go for a flipping board, even if it's just 10 minutes around the block, even if you just walk around the house or just do something else, listen to it, just have a break, and then I'll come back and I'll smash it in probably you know a few minutes and it'll be gone.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's so consistent, I know it works, but I it's taking me a really long time to actually believe that.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's just one example, but it it's just think you know, if I were to get up and walk around but in the offices where I've previously been or go outside, I would just feel like I'm being lazy.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's like I'm being paid at the moment.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: What am I doing outside in in you know, by a lake?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: What am I doing?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: I should be working, and it's it but the irony is I'm gonna go back after my 20-minute break and do much and deliver for my employers.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because we need to see those moments as cognitive recharging points.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: So those moments that we have at the water cooler where we're having a little bit of interaction, talking about something non-work related with a colleague, is so good.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's social connection, it is boosting our cognitive reserve.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that is not draining our batteries, that's really good for us, it's not wasted time, and also it's building camaraderie and and you know morale in the in the department.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, and this is one of the things that I think we've sadly lost with the the with remote working and people working, you know, sort of more hybrid.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um we have lost that sort of you know, the walk back to your desk after a meeting where you'd have a little bit of a debrief with your colleague about how that actually was.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've lost some of that, yeah.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you can fall into the trap now, Andy, and I can relate to that where you just think, oh no, I've just got to finish this before I go.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, the best thing you can do is disassociate yourself from the computer, go for a walk around the block, absolutely.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you can come back intuitive, doesn't it?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Your subconscious works on it in the background.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: We have this fallacy that we need to solve with a problem.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if we can't finish, if we can't get the answer right now, I just need to think harder.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just need to you don't actually.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: The best thing is just just leave it as a hanging question, put your shoes on and go for a walk.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it will come back to it, will come to you.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: The answer will come as you'll walk over.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: The brain is designed to work in three miles now, literally designed.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I didn't, I didn't know.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so yeah, yeah, because yeah, absolutely.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's a it's a it's a good hack.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's also very, very good for your brain, uh bone health, so um, and stop your osteoporosis and your fractures as you get older.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, it's a good from a physical.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's good around.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what would your advice be on how you achieve that kind of timeout within a busy airport environment?
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because we are recording from home, you uh ourselves, we can go for a little walk around the block, we can go to a lake, get into nature.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Not so easy at an airport.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: So, what what sort of um yeah actions could you take to bring that respite?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a really, really good question, Max.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that this is the this is this goes to the heart of a lot of um the challenge in this area, it's got to be realistic, right?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's got to work at 2 45 a.m.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: on a ramp in the in the in the horizontal rain at sort of you know one degree.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think you know what classically happened, the the problem with with phones, they're they're designed to be addictive, aren't they?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh we've all got them, we've all got this challenge, I think, to varying degrees.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: And on your break, quite often, everybody, no judgment here, will have you know some form of drink, energy drink, coffee, something like that, and we'll be checking in with whatever it is we like to check in with, and you can just go into your iPhone, go into app, you can see exactly how much time you spend on everything.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: So there's that's all actually there if you want to see it.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people don't, and I don't, to be honest either, but it's there.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: So the challenge, I think, is is is is primarily not defaulting to that if possible, which is not easy.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: And and it comes down to going for a stroll.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if you've just been lugging bags, uh moving containers, working hard, arguably walking around from gate to gate, right?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: You might not actually want to go for a walk, but I think it's it's it's challenging yourself to break.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: Not every time you can still have a break with a drink and a screen, but it's just maybe pick a break or two and do something slightly different.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe do a FOD walk.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, it's not the most exciting thing, but you can combine, or you know, go go down the gate and check the station resitual.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, there are things, and it's just you get away from everything for a bit and you get that cognitive reset.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I joke, it's like having a buttons, we don't have buttons, do we?
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: We're humans, but it it these are buttons we need to access and press.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why another easy way, and this is maybe this might appear, this is because I'm a female, so I might be talking more to the females here, but I'd love to know if a if a lad has a go at this.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: But using the toilet facilities, um, because I know welfare facilities are quite limited for some groundhangling organizations, and they might not necessarily have rest areas, um, which is a massive problem in itself and a basic hygiene factor.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if they do, you know, using the toilet um for just splashing cold water on your face if you're feeling particularly stressed or you know, annoyed can really help get you out of that red zone, really help bring you down, just because there's a dive reflex that we have, a natural dive reflex, and that really helps calm you down.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: So cold water on the face a few times can really help.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: And another thing I'm quite a big fan of is just popping your earphones in and going in the toilet cubicle and just listening to your favorite track and having a little bit of a move and bop around.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody will know, but you I honestly the difference that you will feel for that three minutes or the four minutes of that track will make all of the difference to the rest of your day.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: So try that one.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to know.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what would you advise to do?
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, sorry, let me phrase that.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it does seem like technology is going faster and faster and faster, but we're going at three miles an hour and our brain won't change, you know.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to adapt the way that we respond to more and more addictive Absolutely, yeah, and just be more mindful of how we interact with it because actually it is it's literally shaping our physiology and our architecture and how our brain functions.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's there's a recent collaboration study they did between the UK and the US um about um our our cognitive stamina stamina and those people that only use AI for 10 minutes a day um had significantly less resilience.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: They gave up with challenging problems much quicker than someone that didn't use AI at all.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it has a big impact.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: What's your attention span step?
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, AI also fragments our attention.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um so our average attention span has dropped quite a lot from over two and a half minutes back in um 2003.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: By 2012, that was a minute 15.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when it was most recently measured, it was 47 seconds.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we've lost two-thirds in just over two decades, which is yeah, really scary.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think yeah, we just need to be cognizant of the fact that it is it is stealing our attention span and it's potentially impacting our deep reasoning, our critical thinking skills, um and making us less uh, you know, uh able to challenge or wrestle with complex problems.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what kind of makes us uniquely human and potentially that might impact innovation if we're just using AI, because we'll end up recycling the same ideas.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: We will, yeah, rather than come up with anything brand new, different, normal.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the scary thing.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think this is it's a conversation that needs to happen alongside the benefits.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Of it, I think, you know, like anything in life, there's a flip side, right?
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can there's a you know yeah, it's about balance, it's always about equilibrium.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um Kirsty, can you tell us a bit more about kindness?
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because I understand you're working with the University of Sussex there on interesting research.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we've um yeah, I recently attended one of their first inaugural Sussex Kindness Conference because yeah, it's a bona fide area of research now, um, showing that that I mean it costs nothing is the first thing.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: But it does lead to but it's perceived as a weakness.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh kindness is weak.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: I know, absolutely, and it seems to be um, yeah, that that you can't you have to be hard-nosed and ruthless in business to get ahead.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can't be kind to your staff.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: And what we mean by kind is really sort of being generous and helpful and empathetic and considerate to staff, and that that being driven by a genuine um desire, you know, genuine warm feelings rather than just a need to be polite.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we kind of mean by kindness.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I think when leadership and peers operate with systemic kindness, so that's being, you know, clear support um levels, knowing that sense of psychological safety and just culture that we were talking about before, treating errors of data, not blaming the individual, then that helps to reduce an unnecessary friction.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that helps then reserve your cognitive energy so that you're more focused on your task.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you're gonna be sharper with your situational awareness, you're gonna detect risks better, um, and your problem solving is going to be much sharper.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: So kindness quite literally optimizes your biological operating system.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: And as I said, it's free.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we should all try a little bit more.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: Random acts of kindness, well, actually, um, can be just as beneficial to the person doing them as to the person receiving them, because witnessing how that lands with somebody else, particularly if it's spontaneous, spontaneous or to a stranger, even just smiling at a stranger.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've started doing that more and more now, and that it gives me as much of an uplift.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't know whether that might have been the only time that person gets smiled at that day.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a person that lives alone, they've just gone out to the shop to buy something and that was their only trip out.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: You might have been the only smile if they've had to use a blooming automated catch point like we were talking about before.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's fascinating that as the giver of that, you receive the same boom boost, then totally, absolutely.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's oxytocin, these are chemical boosts, and these are all good for our body, they're all good, you know, beneficial, and it impacts how we behave around each other and it impacts our relationships, and that's what supports psychological safety.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: But it's just to be really, really clear.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: And having worked in aviation operations for many years, decades, it's not about being soft.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's not absolutely not about being soft and sort of easy on people, you know, letting letting people get away with it.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's not you know, it it I think there are lots of definitions of of kindness running around, and and really it, you know, it's it's about treating people get better and and and and and actually getting more out of them, but not treating them better to get more out of them, treating them better and getting more out of them.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's just there's a nuance, but um it is, and again, backing this up in data, I think ultimately putting a price, a cost on kindness, um, genuinely, is an ROI, and this kind of work is is is necessary.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, so we're gonna we're gonna be doing that, and this is part of uh what we're um working with the University of Sussex to do.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, um I I again we we need some data, we need some we need to start showing some of this stuff in numbers because otherwise a lot of this is potentially just words and uh it needs it needs some backing up because this stuff works.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: Can I ask you sort of to wrap up um for anyone who's listening who's been interested in some of the conversation and the learnings and how they might apply to their aviation business?
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how would they follow up with you guys?
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: What's the next steps?
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_02: Firstly, all conversations are good conversations, and I think um it's very much like this for me is is a is a topic that that I I personally I think a lot of people are agreeing would categorize along with some safety.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: The the way that we approach safety in the industry, and I love this.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: It we all work together.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, the bat the barriers come down, the brands get dropped, the lanyards go on the table.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think to it to a great extent, this is is it's very similar.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: We're dealing with humans with brains, we all want to improve that.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: We you know, we we want to move in the right direction.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I think firstly, just some conversations, you know, having some conversations talking about specific challenges, um, because the yeah, every problem is unique quite often.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: There are some trends, but quite often problems are unique.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I think conversations firstly, um getting getting in touch and having those.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: We we generally work by um by by doing what we call a resilience review, going to businesses and and and and talking to people, basically just talking at great lengths to the people who are in the business, living the business, delivering the business, leading the business, really understanding what's going on.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: But of course, each each situation is different.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: There's a there's a slightly different requirement, slightly different requests, although we have some fairly standard approaches, you you tend to find that we, you know, it you'll tailor, you'll tailor whatever's required to each each each situation.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so so yes, I I would I would say get in touch.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: We we'd love to have the conversations where we are very keen, as I think I've probably said a few times, to prove as much of this stuff we can as we can in tangible, cold, hard facts and data.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um and we wanna we want to work with people to do that.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_02: And our skin is very much in the game, by the way, to to do that.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: We we we're you know willing to to to invest some of our our time and money in in this as well because the this stuff is really important.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: We need to be able to show it more clearly.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um so yes, I would say that if you've got anything to do with that.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: No, I just think that it's it's an it's an urgent need really to um to support the the human in the loop, if you like.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: We've we've done an awful lot to advance the tech and the environment, and we just need to make sure that we're supporting the humans as much as possible um within the system.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I think um, yeah, I think we just want to get the message out there, don't we?
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, yeah.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: We'll look forward to learning more and hearing more from you at a future travel experience uh conference soon.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: For now, thank you both very much.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: I've learned a lot, and I'm sure our listeners have too.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and enjoy the rest of your day.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: Bye bye.